Serious post about a serious issue in my life

As previously established, bumping into people I haven’t seen for a prolonged period of time causes me much anxiety. Since I’m finishing Uni this year, the natural question that gets asked at these awkward meetings is, ‘so what do you want to do when you finish studying?’ This is a pretty ordinary question to ask and it’s not unexpected that someone might be interested to know what you intend to do at the end of 16 years of regimented learning. However, for people like me, the question can be jaw clenchingly annoying. It’s not an annoyance at the person asking the question (because why would they not?), it’s an annoyance of being reminded that you have absolutely no life plan.

I feel such envy for people that have studied vocational courses. If you do medicine, you become a doctor. If you study teaching, you become a teacher. There is a natural progression and knowing that you will slide into the profession you want to do is such a luxury. Studying history means there isn’t really a profession waiting for me at the end of my degree. Obviously you get every third person saying ‘are you gonna become a histoooorian? Are you gonna work in a museeeeeum?’ without really taking into account that just because you have studied history it doesn’t mean you want to spend your time in a dusty museum trying to stop people stealing dinosaur bones. History is not vocational and ‘working in a museum’ is not the career at the end of the history degree road. The problem is that there is no real career.

History is a really interesting degree and I’m glad I did it. I feel that I am a more rounded person for it and if nothing else, history has taught me ‘how to think’. I absolutely resent anyone who says ‘what’s the point in learning history? It’s in the past’. If you want to understand anything about the world we live in today you need to know how we got to this place. Without people studying history, we are doomed to repeat it (although that seems to happen regardless of how many people studying history).  History is a lot of writing essays. I would argue there is more flexibility in writing a history degree than, say, an English literature degree because there is no ‘looking for hidden messages’ and regurgitating what your lecturer has told you. With a history essay you are able to take a period in history and come to your own conclusions as to what event led to what repercussions.  Of course that leads to potential failure when writing an essay because if your lecturer doesn’t agree with what you are saying, you’re likely to find yourself hitting the 2:2 margin. Hard. I recently wrote an essay about the extent to which you could call Hitler a weak dictator. To someone that hasn’t studied history it might seem like a ridiculous question, but to a history student it is a question that opens up all kinds of different avenues to study. The feedback on my essay said that I’d obviously worked hard, deserved a good grade but my tutor didn’t agree with my fundamental argument. I managed to scrape a 2:1 but it’s very frustrating when your tutor is acknowledging your hard work but due to the flexibility in historical arguments, I didn’t gain the mark I felt I deserved.

In a perfect world, I’d be aiming for a career in writing. I’d love to work in journalism but I know that if my CV and a journalism student’s CV were put in front of a potential employer, my CV probably wouldn’t make the cut. It’s frustrating that, I would argue, history teaches you to write just as much as a journalism degree does, but the title of the subjects means that a journalism student will take precedence over me. Writing is a passion of mine, but I chose to take a different path than the average journalism student and I fear that will be to my detriment in the long run. I’m leaving university feeling I have learnt a lot with my history degree, but that perhaps I should have chosen a path in order to secure a more stable future life plan.

 

The Bucket List

The Bucket List

Having recently watched ‘The Bucket List’ I’ve decided to compile my own list of things I want to do before I ‘kick the bucket’. If you haven’t seen the film yet I would highly recommend it.  For one thing Jack Nicholson is an absolute silver fox, and for another it is actually a very good film. Especially if you like sobbing. Uncontrollably. Which, coincidentally, I do. (N.b I am joking about the silver fox thing, he looks like a human Jabba the Hut.)

1.    1.   See the Northern Lights

I’ve heard they are, like, really cool to look at. I’m not even going to try and pretend I know what they are but I’ve looked them up on a really reliable source (Wikipedia) and it’s all to do with the Earth’s magnetic poles. Basically, something weird happens to do with the Earth’s poles and it creates this kick-ass array of lights across the sky. And I mean seriously kick-ass. I’m slightly enraged by the fact that you can only see these lights in absolutely freezing areas in the world. Let’s be honest, they’re probably the main reason that anyone goes there. There’s no Mac Donalds, no shops, no cinemas, no hairdressers, no nothing. But there are some really kick-ass lights so I guess that’s something worth going for.

2.      2. Marry ‘the One’

DO NOT JUDGE ME. I AM A GIRL. WE ALL DREAM OF THIS DAY.  Recently I’ve gone a bit mental. I used to laugh at people that obsessed over their wedding day...and then I became one of those people. I’d like to point out that I am in no way ready to get married now (boyfriend, breathe a sigh of relief) but it is definitely something I want to do someday. I want to wear white. I want everyone to stare at me. I want the ring, the flowers, the first dance. I’d be absolutely gutted if I kicked the bucket before I got to walk down the aisle. In fact, I’d be livid. And no one likes a livid ghost.

3.       3.Get my degree.

Boring but necessary. Nuff said.

4.      4. Write a book

Well I guess this was the whole point of this blog thingy-whatsit. I’d love to write a book one day, it’s just really unfortunate that I have no bloody clue what I want it to be about. I think I’ve probably got enough words inside my brain to do it, I just don’t know how to string them all together to create a coherent, readable book. One day, I promise.

5.    5.   Relearn the piano

Yes, relearn. I actually played piano for 8 years. Unfortunately, I hated every goddamned minute of it and almost made a conscious effort to forget everything my exasperated teacher taught me each week.  I’ve changed my mind now though and would love to sit down at a grand piano and howl along to a Talyor Swift song. However, now I can literally only play ‘Frere Jacques’ which is mildly disheartening considering any old dumbass can play that, even if they have stumps where their hands should be.

6.    6.   Step on every continent.

This requires being marginally well off so I think this will have to go on the back burner until I stop being a student. Damn my education. Provided I last that long I might wait until my retirement to do this and then hit up each continent one after another. I’d like to point out that just because I’ll be old it doesn’t mean I’ll behave myself.

7.      7. Get in a taxi and yell, ‘FOLLOW THAT CAR!’

8.    8.   Keep up my diary ‘till I am old and mouldy

Yes, I am 21 and I have a diary, blablabla. I love looking back on things I wrote when I was 14. It turns out I moan a lot and ‘fall in love’ even more. I’d love to have a whole archive of diaries to read back on when I’m old. Even if I only write in it once a week to moan that so-and-so is SUCH a bitch, I’d like my kids to read them too one day and remember what a cranky twit their mother was.

9.       9.Wear a really, really expensive pair of shoes.

I don’t even want to buy them. I don’t think I can ever justify walking around with a year’s average wage strapped to my feet, but I’d just like to try them on. Just to see how they feel. I want to feel like Cinderella, even if they are only on loan.

There are more things to be added at a later date but this will do for now. I’ve already been able to tick a few things off my bucket list: I’m learning a different language; I’ve travelled to New York; I’ve fallen in love (n’awrrrr....BARF). Let’s try and be realistic - I could write that I want to travel to the moon and meet Barack Obama and invent a cure for cancer but the likelihood of any one of those things happening is slim-to-none and I hate failing so let’s keep these ambitions attainable, people!